What key is House of the Rising Sun in?
House of the Rising Sun is an incredibly interesting song because it flits between all three of the minor scales (natural, harmonic and melodic), never staying in one scale for long. However, it is always in A minor. You could go a couple of different ways with this. First off, A minor pentatonic (A C D E G) will work over most of the progression. The only thing that could really hurt would be wailing on the G note over the E chord. True, G is a blue note in the E blues scale and the E minor pentatonic so if you use it wisely you may be fine. What would also work would be to remember that leads are built upon more than just scales. Using chord shapes along “chord substitutions” will give you some very cool lines. For instance, Am is made up of A, C and E. If you kept those notes cycling in a triplet like this: E – 12 – – – – – – – – – – B – – – – 13 – – – – – – – G – – – – – – – 14 – – – – through the first part of the chord progression, you’d have this: and that would sound very dynam
